Aerial View:
Playlist
from August 4, 2015

Aerial View was WFMU’s first regularly-scheduled phone-in talk show. Hosted by Chris T. and on the air since 1989, the show features topical conversation, interviews and many trips down the rabbit hole. Until further notice, Aerial View is only available as a podcast, available every Tuesday morning. Subscribe to the newsletter “See You Next Tuesday!” and find tons of archives at aerialview.me.
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No, it doesn't consist of only tracks from Led Zeppelin III. I'm calling it that because there's been two previous attempts (the second attempt was consecutive shows, so I'm counting them as one) at this and they were both horrific fun. Hear Led Zeppelin I Karaokehere and Led Zeppelin IIKaraokehere and here.

Here are the twenty-three backing tracks - two more than last time (the new tracks are Living Loving Maid and Thank You) - available to sing tonight:

This year not only can you call 201-209-WFMU to sing... you can also Skype me at commbreak. If Skype is working in Studio A we should get some great sound quality and less of a delay than over the phone. If you have Skype, feel free to try it.

Last Week: Picking Quarrels & Provoking Trouble

Last week'sAerial View was inspired by news of the Chinese government using new laws to supress citizens who express their true thoughts online. I decided to make Picking Quarrels & Provoking Trouble my new slogan and I asked you to call in to argue with me. We heard from political protesters, fans of good and bad TV and many more. It was a lively show, so thanks!

I'd like to hear this intro stretched out to the full hour. that wouldn't be an editing nightmare for you Chris, would it?

I want to provoke some trouble with Chris T. for opening the door to all the bad call in shows on WFMU with his good call in show 21 years ago. That is your fault so say you are sorry.

I loved when Dan fell in love with that little grifter chick. Everyone on Deadwood was a great fucking actor. Bad move to kill off anyone from it.

I've always wondered what the angry people shouting incoherently about politics online are like in person... now I have a better idea.

Skipping like a Schoolgirl

Let us consider a maligned sound. The skipping record. A piece of vinyl with a needle trapped in its groove.

Before there were MP3 players, before CDs - ever since 1888 - wherever there were records, there was a potential for skips.

Technically, what’s happening is the progress of the stylus has been impeded, whether due to damage, dirt or dust. Back when phonograph records were the prevailing way to hear music, skips were regarded as an annoyance. If they happened on the radio, disc jockeys considered them an embarrassment. But I love skipping records. Yes, love them. They've long held a fascination for me, back to the time my mom's Bobby Goldsboro 45 of Honey skipped incessantly on the phrase "…she planted it…" locking me in a synapse-altering thrall.

I’d even argue skipping records are the Granddaddy of scratching and sampling. But am I alone in deriving secret pleasure from these spontaneous realignments of space and time? Am I alone in having been massively entertained by these unforeseen encounters? Am I alone in seeing an absurd sense of humor at work in what is essentially a defect?

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS GONE BACK AND LISTENED TO A PARTICULARLY GOOD SKIP AGAIN?

A DJ I know told me about this skip that really got to him. It was a Carl Reiner/Mel Brooks record and the skip fell on the words “echo cave”. He let the skip go for ten or twelve minutes until it “fixed” itself. Wanting to preserve the moment and use it in some future project, he made a futile attempt at recreating magic, which, of course, failed.

Another DJ friend told me about her terror of Once More, It's Christmas when that tune skipped on a high crescendo of violins. She says the effect was not unlike Herman Bloch’s shower-scene music from Psycho. After that, she couldn't be in the same room with a skipping record or she’d break into a cold sweat if it wasn't stopped right away.

Best of all was the guy I know who was running a little after-hours place in New York City. On the jukebox was a 45 of a song that included the chorus, “Make my day”, the Clint Eastwood phrase.

One night the record started skipping real bad on that line, it kept repeating over and over "Make my day, make my day, make my day…"

Everyone in the bar was transfixed for a moment. And then this drunk went up and punched someone named Rich in the eye, breaking his eyesocket.

My favorite skip? Well, the Bobby Goldsboro one was IT until some years back. I never thought a CD skip – which is a whole different process (zeroes and ones misaligning) and usually just irritating – could ever captivate me in quite the same way as good old vinyl. Then I was recording the Jimi Hendrix album Axis: Bold as Love from CD and halfway through the song Let the Good Times Roll the disc started stuttering with such alarming Mel Tillis precision I was sure an inanimate object had at last revealed a sense of humor.

I let the tape run and eventually played it on my Aerial View. Four or five people called to say what a great skip it was. The next week, I got a note from a listener who said his toddler began dancing violently, bobbing up and down, when the skip came on.

The father said it was the first time he'd seen his son act that way.

WFMU Literary Guild Meet Up

Contrary to what I wrote last week, I will NOT be reading at the next WFMU Literary Guild Meet Up Saturday, September 18 at the KGB Bar in Manhattan. I have a great excuse, though (see below). Your readers this go-round are:

Thanks to Yvonne and Dan Bodah, there's also a bunch of video on the WFMU YouTube channel from the last reading I missed (due to the Mermaid Parade) on June 20. Here's one of Bronwyn reading her piece The Pony Farm:

Bronwyn C. reads The Pony Farm, WFMU Literary Guild Meetup 6/20/15

Pencil Me In

My wife Janet Tsakis was named the Emerging Artist for the next art exhibit running September 18 - October 18 at the Monmouth Museum in Monmouth NJ. Congratulations, honey!

Opening night is Friday, September 18, 6 - 8 pm and my lovely, talented better half will have eighteen pieces in the large room to the left as you enter. Come see us on opening night or when Janet gives an Artist Talk on Wed., Oct. 7, 7 - 8 pm. Or stop in whenever you can.

Friends, believe it or not but this newsletter requires HOURS of work, all done by yours truly. I started it with the strict notion that it would help raise more money come Marathon time. It hasn't exactly panned out that way and I keep wondering if I should just move this whole enterprise over to a Facebook page, as most of my fellow FMU programmers have done. Personally, I am no fan of Facebook and see it as slightly above a necessary evil. But I know it would be much less labor-intensive than this.

This is all a long-winded way of asking for your feedback on this newsletter. If you'd like to see it continue and feel its worthwhile, please let me know. Otherwise, I may be pulling the plug on this before much longer. Please drop me a line at the return address.

Obligatory Throwback Pic

On the cemetery set of I Was A Teenage Mummy, 1990.
L - R: Chris Frieri, Chris T., Mark Fucile & Bob Reiss

OVER THE AIR: Every Tuesday night, 6 PM Eastern time on WFMU in the metro NY/NJ area at 91.1 FM and on WMFU at 90.1 in the lower Catskills, Hudson Valley, western New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.

ON THE WEB: Streaming audio in several formats is available at wfmu.org.ON DEMAND ARCHIVES: The Aerial View Archive page features archives going back to nearly the beginning of the show in RealAudio and MP3 format.PODCAST: Aerial View is available on iTunes as a podcast.WFMU MOBILE: Listen live via the mobile app or browse the archives. Get the iOS app here and the Android version here. Amazon Kindle users can use the TuneIn Radio app. Info for other platforms, including Blackberry, etc. can be found here.